Tag Archives: Bethesda

I’m trying very hard not to get too excited about this. I have confidence in Bethesda for being able to craft a game worth playing.. but an MMO? This is pretty much a new field for the the company. Yes it’s set in the world we all know.. just far in the past. How will this mesh with what’s currently going on? And this hits on one of my main pet peeves about the Elder Scroll series, the simple fact that eons can go by and nothing changes in technology.

Really?

Anyway.. ok.. let’s break this down:

1) The game will be set roughly a millennium before the events in Skyrim And I’m betting the tech hasn’t changed.. will we be able to see some of the ‘dwarf’ tech in use? What about the ruins in Skyrim? Will we be able to see them in all their glory now?

2) Players will be able to explore all of Tamriel, not just one region like in current Elder Scrolls titles. Yea!! but with out proper city’s like "OH! this is where Morrowind will be’ it’s not really going to matter. if anything at least making the city’s/villages LOOK young. We are going to want to see the land that we’ve come to know over the last 5 games and how it’s changed in the time between ES:O and Arena . [Update] Well according to the movie shown on the 05/11/ update, YES! will will see the correct maps! Down to the height map used in Oblivion!

3) Hot Key Combat Another good looking over-glorified game of whack-a-mole and I wonder how this makes ES:OL an Elder scrolls game.

4) Class Based leveling, no more skills So this is an Elder Scrolls MMO how?

5) Mounts are confirmed, flying mounts however will not be included due to lore restrictions (no dragons). Like there isn’t some mage somewhere trying to figure out how to place wings on a horse.

6) No player housing or NPC romance will be included, but could possibly be added later on. What?! No housing?! I’m SO thrown off by this. You want to release a MMO for everyone to feel apart of Tamriel and NOT allow them to have home? Not even an instanced version of the housing in skyrim? TOTALLY LAME

7) There will be full voice acting for all NPCs. Not for long. I can’t remember a game that has full voice for everything the NPC says. Earth and Beyond even tried that and stopped after a few patch’s because of the total PITA it is.

8) The average player will be able to reach the level cap in roughly 120 hours of gameplay. So that’s about 1/2 a month for a farmer?

9) Mundus Stones will replace Guardian Stones found in Skyrim and will offer various buffs. Well their be lore as to why there’s the name change?

10) The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood have been confirmed. Oh yeah.. THEY get a guild, we can’t get a house…

11) Endgame content will feature heroic dungeons and large-scale raids. Just like every other MMO.

12) There will be both instanced and public dungeons. Public dungeons are dungeons with only one "instance" meaning everyone who enters will be in the same instance. Just like quite a few other MMOs.

13) Skills are still based on stamina/mana. It was stated above that there are no skills… OH.. actions? Just like every other MMO.

14) Sprinting, blocking and interrupts will remain in the game. Blocking still plays a large role, players can block with a shield, 2H Sword or Force Field. Blocking an enemies power attack will still potentially throw them off balance, like in Skyrim. How can you block if combat isn’t action based?

15) Traditional aggro mechanics are non-existant, Zenimax Online is promising "player-like" AI. For example, when entering a room in a dungeon you won’t be able to pull a group of mobs back and pick them off, rather they will all react at the sight of you and begin performing their designated role (NPC tanks rush forward, healers and ranged move away from players).

Well a "player-like" AI would be a first, and that could lead to some interesting combat.

17) There will be a finesse system which allows players to execute an ultimate skill. Finesse points are built up by being effective in battle, encouraging players to play smarter.

In other words.. Tokens. SS/DD

18) Questing is "hub-less" unlike games like WoW, it is apparently more like TES, in which players can go anywhere and do whatever piques their interest. This of course will still be limited by level requirements. Sure, so you can still go after that lvl50 mud crap?

19) Elder Scrolls Online will use a phasing system, much like WoW. Well at least they are admitting they looked over WoW’s way or doing things.

20) It’s confirmed that there are "fetch x of y, kill x of y" quests although they are said to be the minority of the quests. Unlike skyrim?

21) There will be three faction PvP, just like DAoC. Doesn’t surprise me.

22) Instanced PvP arenas are confirmed. Doesn’t surprise me, either.

23) Open World PvP and Free-Form PvP will be included and is said to also be similar to DAoC. Nor here…

24) Siege weapons and destructible terrain are confirmed. Nope, not a bit of surprise.

25) Endgame PvP will involve players fighting to take control of Cyrodiil, conquer the Imperial City and crown the most accomplished player in your faction the Emperor. That’s right, you can be come the Emperor. The ultimate goal is the Imperial City, however there will be other capture points such as forts, farms, mines, castles etc. (But you can’t own a house) Player-politics are confirmed and are said to be closely related to DAoC and UO. There will be a system in place which will facilitate a players holdings being attacked, allowing players to organically defend their turf without the game enforcing scheduled assaults.

Bottom Line: Everything I read above states that this was DAoC2 rebranded with the Elder Scrolls name. Pretty much nothing in here says ‘Elder scrolls’. Class based VS skill based means you can’t play your toon the way you wish. It’s an MMO so you know the whole sand box thing is out the window no matter what’s stated. Yeah, you might be able to get level 1 quests no matter when you go.. but it’s still a hub since you’d tend to work out of one city to start with anyway and NOTHING stated about crafting.

We’re seemingly looking at a game that’s a combination of DAoC, WoW, with a little UO for seasoning. DOA? So far, I believe so.

The Elder Scrolls Online will be unveiled in the June issue of Game Informer. The game is to merge the unmatched exploration of rich worlds that the franchise is known for with the scale and social aspects of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Players will discover an entirely new chapter of Elder Scrolls history in this ambitious world, set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm.

Notch, the man behind Minecraft, has issued a challenge to Bethesda Softworks over Mojang’s newest game in the works called ‘Scrolls’. Seems that Bethesda lawyers think that’s the ‘Scrolls’ game which is a trading card type of game is just way to much like a first person RPG with at least 4 volumes in the series and people will get confused that someone might but scrolls thinking it’s ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ or the other way around.

I think they just want ‘Scrolls.com’.. anyway…

Notch response to this silliness? Challenge Bethesda to a three on three online battle in Quake 3. If they win, Bethesda will drop the law suit. If they lose they will change the name of the game.

This should be fun to watch..

===========================

08/19/11
Notch is not thinking that perhaps it was a bit silly. Either way.. it’s good PR. I”m thinking though that he should have used like UT3, and not Quake.

Playing thru this next Bethesda masterpiece, it almost feels like it should be called Fallout: Oblivion.

And that is not a bad thing.

For those of you that don’t know, it was done on the same engine that Oblivion was done on and given a few enhancements along the way and playing thru this so far, you almost can’t help but wonder what would happen if they at Bethesda had waited until now to make Oblivion…one can wish….

(Sidebar: GameStop offered a buy 2 pre owned games and get one free and since I never did finish thoroughly Oblivion, I picked it up….again…..something to keep me occupied over the long winter ahead.)

Either way, you still get a nice customization screen that most of you have heard about and then like Oblivion, you get a bit of a tutorial as to how to get around , you learn more about your family and so on….I won’t bore you about the details because I know most of you already know.

This game handles really well as to be expected and graphically speaking, it is impressive. When you see the monster cockroaches, they will make your skin crawl! Can we say RPG of the year?

I do like the VATS targeting system which allows you target specific parts of your enemy and take it out and the resulting cut scene that appears as you perform the move.

As I saw mentioned elsewhere I do like the fact that as you play, you start to feel a bit attached to some of the characters. Early on, My bully needed help for his mom being attacked by roaches and depending on your moral compass, you can tell him to buzz off or do it, either way you won’t be disappointed on how the game reacts to your decision.

In another section, someone wanted to me to do something that would have the end result of destroying an entire community so that his company could ‘gentrify’ the area. I went to those in charge and told them what’s going on…unfortunately the end result made that person’s child an orphan and made me sad, part of it had to do with the fact that it was a murder in cold blood and I made a hot headed choice because that character was so helpful early on…and now you don’t have them anymore and it kind of makes you feel that everything good in life that happened since you woke up that morning to see all that good brutally taken from you break you piece by piece inside.

I also (dis)liked that there are people in this game that will try to hustle you, play you and just out and out lie…and this is just the first town wait til you get to the 2nd one! now mind you, for every deed that you do, good or bad you get "Karma" points so play wisely….LOL.

And this is different than Fable II…in that game, I don’t feel that same level of attachment for my characters like I do here, as a matter of fact, sometimes I feel more like being obnoxious with some fo them just to see what happens.

The quest system is about the same as Oblivion and similar to that game, you have to pick your battles.

I don’t have that many complaints except to say that I wish there was a little more scripting for the AI at some story points because it seems like if you do something to finish it, it’s kind of done and there should be more…

And maybe I have gotten spoiled by GoW and GTA IV, but now I feel that games featuring combat shooting systems should have some kind of cover system in it….heh!

I haven’t progressed too far, and maybe it does further down the line, but from what i have seen and what most of us have seen in sci-fi movies like this, I kind of wish that the wilderness would get ‘more dangerous’ after sunset. You know…for a real challenge if you want to get from point a to point b, once the sunsets the monsters are more powerful or their numbers are greater.

But really my complaint list is very short.

The sounds are cool especially on a great surround system especially metal on metal door openings which can be grating on the nerves but fits right in this game.

So far I would say that I wish I had more hands so I could give it 4 thumbs up! 2 will be suffice so, get this game and enjoy it…if you are going to be too distracted with GoW2 or COD 5, get this game and let it set for a bit because once you play, you will be sucked in!

FiringSquad has learned that publisher Bethesda Softworks, the current owner of the video-PC game rights to the Star Trek franchise, will not be publishing a game based on the upcoming J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek movie. Company spokesperson Pete Hines confirmed this news with FiringSquad today.

Hines also stated that Bethesda Softworks’s sister company, the new MMO based developer ZeniMax Online Studios, will not be taking over the development of Star Trek Online.

When asked if Bethesda Softworks was going to continue publishing Trek games or if it would let its current license expire, Hines only told FiringSquad cryptically, “TBD.”

[PogoWolf’s Vue] Why can’t a company figure out that if a GOOD Star Trek game was built that it would sell? Can anyone NOT figure out how to make a game in the Star Trek universe? Has there even been a good Star Trek game??! Ok.. perhaps the old Arcade version… maybe. Or the old school computer BASIC version.

Hmmm.. perhaps I should make an web based version of the old BASIC Star Trek game. Would anyone play it?